The machine is not capable of listening or improvising in real-time
A two-armed android robot, EveR 6, took the stage to conduct the orchestra in Seoul. The debutant managed to wow the audience with a flawless performance in place of a human maestro at the National Theater of Korea.
The robot is designed by the Korea Institute of Industrial Technology. The robot with a humanoid face, first bowed to the audience and started waving its arms to control the tempo of the live show, reported Reuters.
Choi Soo-yeoul, who led Friday’s performance alongside the robot, said, “Movement by a conductor is very detailed,” adding, “The robot was able to present such detailed moves much better than I had imagined.”
The five-foot-ten-inch-tall (1.8m) robot guided more than 60 musicians of the National Orchestra of Korea who were playing traditional Korean instruments.
The robot successfully guided the compositions, both independently and in collaboration with a human maestro who was standing next to it for about half an hour, entertaining the more than 950 audience members who had packed the National Theater of Korea.
“I came here worried whether this robot could pull this off without a glitch,” Kim Ji-min, a 19-year-old college student majoring in music, told AFP.
“But I found it to be in great harmony with the musicians… It felt like a whole new world for me.”
While there have been musical performances led by robotic conductors in the past, including a 2017 concert led by the robot YuMi in Italy, this was the first time South Koreans were able to witness a robotic conductor on stage.
EveR 6, developed by the state-run Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, was programmed to replicate the movements of a human conductor through motion capture technology.
The machine is not capable of listening or improvising in real-time, however.